300 of the world’s best landscape artists competed for the honor of planting a garden at this year International Garden Festival in the shadow of the castle Chaumont-sur-Loire in the Loire Valley. From reds to yellows, this year’s theme is Garden of Color and 26 winners show off their talents.
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The White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner got underway Saturday night. It’s a chance for President Barack Obama to jab at the Washington establishment and perhaps chide his critics, all in fun.
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Long known for its save-the-planet ways, Austin, TX continues to be a national leader in producing eco-friendly homes.
More than 20 percent of homes built in the Austin Energy service area now are being rated green by a city program.
“Even with the downturn, we’re still rating a lot of homes,” says Richard Morgan, Austin Energy’s green building manager.
Worth noting is the number of green-certified homes built in Austin by production builders.
(Read more in the Austin-American Statesman)
Since September 11th, the crown on the Statue of Liberty has been off limits to the public. But that will soon change and tourist will once again be able to go right to the top of Lady Liberty.
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A taxi driver in Argentina, found a bag of cash left on his seat by an elderly couple containing $32,500. A few days later he managed to locate his passengers and return the money.
For Argentines used to corruption at all levels of society, this was an extraordinary story. Two young advertising agency employees decided to set up a website to thank Santiago Gori for his exemplary behavior.
Now thousands of people have accessed the site praising Mr. Gori and donating rewards totaling $14,580.
(Read more in the BBC)
Zach Bonner has already walked farther and done more for charity than many grown-ups. Now he’s about to make good on his vow to walk more than 1,200 miles from Tampa to Washington to bring attention to and raise money for the plight of homeless kids in the United States with his ‘My House to the White House’ trip.
(Read about Zack in this AP story via MSNBC)
Watch Zack tell the story in his own words:
Britain’s “green” job market is thriving despite tough economic times and mounting redundancies in other sectors, environmental recruiters said on Friday.
Acre Resources saw job opportunities in Britain’s renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainability and corporate social responsibility sectors grow by 58 percent in the past year, but gave no absolute figures on the size of the green job market.
U.S. retailers posted better- than-expected monthly sales results for a second straight month in April, giving fresh evidence that consumer spending is warming up with the spring weather.
Nearly two-thirds of the retailers that reported April sales at stores open at least a year topped Wall Street estimates and a handful said their first-quarter results, which start landing next week, will be better than expected.
Everyone knows the grim news — unemployment in the United States has jumped to 8.5 percent, a 25-year high. Since November, the nation has lost more than three million jobs.
But not everyone knows the brighter side to the equation: deep in the maw of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, millions are still being hired.
So, while 4.8 million workers were laid off or chose to leave their jobs in February, employers across the country hired 4.3 million workers that month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
US actor Ashton Kutcher has pledged to donate the $100,000 he won in a bet, to help fight the spread of malaria, prompting other stars to chip in more money.
Oprah Winfrey and Kutcher’s wife, actress Demi Moore, gave $200,000 each and television-radio host Ryan Seacrest and CNN gave $100,000 each, according to Ray Chambers, special envoy for malaria to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Ted Turner even said he’d have Ashton and Demi for dinner if they raised the money for 100,000 more bed nets.
Kutcher’s Twitter followers–1,000,000 strong–are helping.
The United Nations announced a plan on Wednesday that aims to finally rid the world of DDT, a toxic pesticide still used to spray homes against malaria-spreading mosquitoes.
Ten projects involving some 40 countries in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia, are set to test non-chemical methods of eradicating the deadly disease without DDT, based on successful pilot projects in Mexico and Central America that successfully cut malaria rates.
Organic solutions range from eliminating potential mosquito breeding sites to securing homes with mesh screens, and deploying mosquito-repellent trees or fish that eat mosquito larvae.
Some people manage to maintain a rosy outlook no matter what’s thrown at them.
Tune in on Thursday May 7th, 2009 to see Michael J. Fox return to TV traveling the world in search of the nature of optimism. The ABC show is called, Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.
Watch this video sneak peak from YouTube.
Related News: Read in NY Daily News about 5 New Yorkers who overcame hardships to inspire others
Will Smith was honored as a humanitarian receiving the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2009 Humanitarian Award. He talked to the press saying that from the time he was a child the idea of service was engrained in him as a way of life connected to success. His wife and kids were onhand to praise the family man.
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Scientists have found more than 200 new species of frogs in Madagascar, a discovery that almost doubles the number of known amphibians and illustrates an underestimation of the natural riches that have helped spawn a $390-million-a-year tourism industry.
New frog photo: Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC)
Polio paralyzed Martha Mason from the neck down in 1948, and she spent the rest of her days inside an iron lung, an 800-pound airtight tube that breathed for her. But Mason, who died Monday at 71, made people forget about her fragile condition as she talked passionately about politics and literature, theology and vegetable gardens.
She even wrote a book.
Uncomplaining and good-humored, she usually sent folks away feeling better than when they came.
(Continue reading, and see the photo, in the New York Times)
Newlyweds in Indonesia are planting trees under a program to replenish forests. Couples agree to plant 10 trees before they marry. But if they divorce, they must plant 50 more.
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
Can tomatoes be taught to make antiviral drugs for people who eat them? Would zapping your skin with a laser make your vaccination work better? Could malaria-carrying mosquitoes be given a teensy head cold that would prevent them from sniffing out a human snack bar?
These are among 81 projects that received $100,000 grants on Monday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a bid to support innovative, unconventional global health research on infectious diseases, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases.
Highlighted in Obama’s speech, a South Carolina teen’s plea to improve her run-down school inspired a quarter million dollar donation from local businessman.
Students who had grown resigned to old, “nasty” furnishings at their dilapidated middle school were elated on Monday to find new furniture and a freshly painted cafeteria, thanks to a student’s plea, a president’s speech and a businessman’s response.
South Carolina‘s highest court has temporarily stopped thousands of pending foreclosure sales so homeowners can take advantage of a new federal program to refinance mortgages.
(Continue Reading AP story in Yahoo)
While some students are rejected from colleges everywhere, the more common scenario is for a student to be sitting on multiple wait-lists but to have no firm offer in hand. Thankfully there is a great resource out there.
The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) compiles an annual list of schools that still have openings after May 1; go to www.nacacnet.org.
Read more great tips for students without college acceptance letters in the Charlotte Observer.
